Hygge Case Study: "I wanted the Preschool to be relaxed and open ended "

By Anna Webb

-My practice before the accreditation (What I needed help or guidance on)

-The vision I've created in my work

-The changes I've made to my personal life and practice

-The impact this has had on myself, the children and the setting. 

-Your next steps for future development.

Before I began the Hygge accreditation I felt we lacked direction and that we were all bringing something to the table but not being able to be consistent with the approaches, I wanted the Preschool to be relaxed and open ended and after having completed the Anna Epgrave in the moment training realised that using the child’s interests and building on this to create a more child cantered approach worked well with our cohort of children, however we still lacked direction, on signing up for the course I really hoped that this would support us with mental wellbeing, self-regulation, behaviour management and the links with the outside being that we are a Forest School setting.

I started the course and was very quickly inspired by the inspirational speakers especially Meik Wiking, The first thing we did was introduce mindfulness sessions, reflection times and calming music, we gradually changed the layout of the preschool and the equipment within it, we introduced lots of soft furnishings, candles, and more homely objects like a China tea set, magazines, newspapers notepads everywhere with a variety of writing media, we bought objects to stimulate conversation, a coffee grinder, a type writer, natural objects from the outside pine cones, plants shells etc, we continued to develop our placing and arranging/ loose parts area and this is now extremely popular with our younger children and is enhancing their many schemas.

As I continued the course through the lockdown I was able to introduce some of the calmness and mindfulness in our home and decided to take up a hobby that I had previously done before I had children and lost the interest, yoga, I was able to do this online with an instructor I found this both improved my mental health and also my physical health, a colleague and myself decided to do a child yoga online course which we now use daily in our practice at work, the children ask if we can do yoga after lunch.

Lunch times are now much calmer we have  lovely table clothes and family photos in frames on the table and play calm music and have real candles and plants on the tables creating a real family lunch feel, every Tuesday we cook lunch on the fire pit the children are fully involved in the whole process preparing, cooking, distributing, eating and clearing up after, we find that the children’s behaviour on this day is exemplary, after lunch we take part in massage sessions, breathing activities and yoga.

Whilst on holiday I read the hundred languages of children and again was inspired by the Reggio approach which I have always loved and decided to use some of the fantastic ideas in our practice as it fits in so well with Hygge, we have a lean too, outside classroom that we always struggle to use appropriately often using it for storage I decided to clear this and try to develop an atelier.

My daughter whom is an amazing artist has art lessons with a local Artist, I decided to approach her to see if she could help us develop the area and offer a weekly session that would be completely open, no child would be forced to make generic pictures but for them to be supported to use new media and learn techniques, and imagination explore and experiment with ideas. This is now up and running and is beginning to reflect the stories of development, ideas and fun and this is documented in the atelier. In this area we have made a stay out block play area, as a pack away site we would often see the children making amazing structures only to have to pack them away now they can be left out and developed the following day or throughout the week, we have lots of photos of the children’s homes up so they can find their homes this has created an immense amount of talk and interest and the parents have been keen to contribute and become more involved.

We also have a lovely music area out here where children can play real instruments and also use the iPod to play a variety of music from all around the world this has encouraged children to talk about where they are from looking at the globe in the home corner or the large world map on the wall. We encouraged parents to let us know if they had any musical talents and we were pleasantly surprised to find some amazing musicians amongst us, photos of our families playing instruments or singing or dancing are displayed in the Atelier. This is now a bustling but calm area now that is fully functional.

We have made active steps to engage with our local community, visiting the church and inviting the vicar in to support us when celebrating a variety of festivals, we visited the local bakers and now his Grandson attends our preschool, the local restaurant has been in to help us prepare one of our Tuesday lunches and the local barber came  in and spoke about cutting hair and also brought in his beautiful parrot. The mechanics provided us with a steering wheel for our outdoor roleplay area and we have shared some of our Artwork with the local care home whom we hope to develop some intergenerational work with once the pandemic is more settled.

We go out to the local park to do a forest school session out of the preschool once a week and this has provided us with a much larger area and many more ideas, again we see the same lady walking her dogs we have good relations with the bus drivers and people wave to the children on our way to or from the park, the children’s behaviour has really improved as has their ability to communicate they seem happier and are much more engaged in everything they do they are inquisitive and eager to learn the staff are also happier and the time flies by everyone is much more involved.

We would like to get the parents more involved encouraging them to come in and support with cooking, art, music, reading and to see what amazing opportunities we are providing for their children and seeking ways to continue to improve and develop we would like them to feel part of the Hygge way of life and for them to take some of these elements into their lives and feel the calmness, happiness that can be achieved from a few simple changes.

Join us on the Hygge in the Early Years Accreditation here